Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) is stepping up efforts to restore the lawmaking authority of Congress by encouraging support of the Make Elected Leaders Vote Again (MELVA) movement to bring accountability to federal laws.

Lee has been strongly urging passage of the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act as a means of preventing unelected bureaucrats from making rules that carry the force of law.

The REINS Act would require bureaucrat-made laws to be approved by Congress before taking effect.

Lee says most laws are never voted on by Congress, despite the fact that Congress alone has the power to make federal law.

That leaves Americans vulnerable to excessive, unaccountable lawmaking that can harm hard working American taxpayers while costing them trillions of dollars annually.

Lee says that MELVA is a MAGA-inspired movement whose cause can be advanced by the passage of the REINS Act and the attaching of the REINS Act to any debt ceiling bill considered by Congress this year.

In a hearing with former Congressman Dan Bishop (R-NC), who is the next Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Lee asked Bishop to explain why American voters who assume that their elected Senators and Representatives vote on everything are mistaken as to who has really been running the country.

Bishop shared a graphic illustrating the striking difference between the number of laws voted on by Congress each year versus the regulatory output of the unelected bureaucrats.

Bishop also reminded Sen. Lee that President Trump is pursuing an aggressive agenda of reforming the regulatory state by seeking to take 10 regulations down for every new one to come along.

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at the OMB will be at the heart of that effort, according to Bishop.